Department
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Major
Computer Engineering and Physics
Research Advisor
Finaish, Fathi
Advisor's Department
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Funding Source
Missouri S& T Opportunities for Undergraduate Research Experiences (OURE) Fellows Program NASA Space Grant Program
Abstract
A semi-autonomous helicopter has been created to fill both civilian and military rolls. In a civilian role, the aircraft is capable of assisting disaster relief personnel in surveying damaged structures and other hazardous areas. In a military role, the aircraft can provide valuable, time-sensitive intelligence in urban environments. A number of sensors and pieces of computer hardware have been mounted on a small remote-control helicopter to allow for near autonomous operation. The helicopter is controlled from a portable, laptop computer-based ground station that allows the operator to monitor the helicopter's position and video from an onboard camera. Image processing software station assists the operator in identifying windows and doorways of buildings. A fuzzy logic control system has been developed for the helicopter and has been tuned with partial success and tested using flight simulation. Additional work is needed to finish tuning and testing the control system.
Biography
Paul Robinette is a senior in the Computer Engineering and Physics at Missouri S&T He is serving his second year as the Missouri S&T Robotics Team President. He has been active on the Robotics Team for over three years and has overseen the design, fabrication and testing of three robots for the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC). He has spent the last year working on Missouri S&T's entry to the American Helicopter Society First Responder Competition. He has designed the ground station and assisted in the administration of the team. He has research experience with the Learning Applied to Ground Robotics (LA GR) program through Dr. Agarwal in the Intelligent Systems Center (November 2005 to September 2006). In this project, he helped to design a feature flow system for object recognition to allow a vision-based robot to navigate in unfamiliar terrain. He has worked as a software engineer for one year at the Rolla office of the US Geological Survey. He also has an amateur radio license.
Research Category
Engineering
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Document Type
Presentation
Award
Engineering oral presentation, Second place
Location
Havener Center, Ozark Room
Presentation Date
09 Apr 2008, 10:30 am - 11:00 am
Development of an Aerial Robot for Surveillance Missions around Buildings
Havener Center, Ozark Room
A semi-autonomous helicopter has been created to fill both civilian and military rolls. In a civilian role, the aircraft is capable of assisting disaster relief personnel in surveying damaged structures and other hazardous areas. In a military role, the aircraft can provide valuable, time-sensitive intelligence in urban environments. A number of sensors and pieces of computer hardware have been mounted on a small remote-control helicopter to allow for near autonomous operation. The helicopter is controlled from a portable, laptop computer-based ground station that allows the operator to monitor the helicopter's position and video from an onboard camera. Image processing software station assists the operator in identifying windows and doorways of buildings. A fuzzy logic control system has been developed for the helicopter and has been tuned with partial success and tested using flight simulation. Additional work is needed to finish tuning and testing the control system.
